Decrescendo

What it means

Diminuendo means gradually getting quieter. It is written as the word, abbreviated dim., or as a hairpin: a narrowing angle closing to the right. The notation section collects the related terms.

Decrescendo, abbreviated decresc., means the same thing. The two words are used interchangeably and no consistent distinction exists between them, though some writers claim one.

How it is notated

The hairpin. Two lines converging, wide at the start and narrow at the end. The most common form.

The word, dim. or decresc., with a dotted line indicating duration.

Poco a poco diminuendo, little by little, for a long gradual fade.

Morendo and calando are related terms meaning dying away, which usually imply slowing as well as quietening.

Smorzando means fading and dying, again often with a slowing implication.

The pacing problem, in reverse

Students make the mirror image of the crescendo error.

A diminuendo over eight bars becomes a sudden drop in bar two followed by eight quiet bars.

The correction is the same in principle: stay louder for longer than feels natural. The bulk of the reduction happens in the last third.

That produces a fade that sounds like receding rather than like a level change.

The end matters most

A specific point about diminuendos.

The last few notes of a diminuendo are where it is heard. A player who fades to a reasonable level and then stops has not completed it.

A diminuendo to pianissimo must genuinely arrive at pianissimo, and the final note is where the effect lands.

That final note is also where control is hardest, because a quiet sustained note at the end of a long bow requires the most bow control.

How it is produced on violin

The three variables reduce together.

Bow speed slows progressively. The main mechanism.

Weight reduces proportionally, but never to nothing. The string must still speak.

Contact point migrates toward the fingerboard as the diminuendo progresses.

That third element is what students miss. A diminuendo produced by pressure reduction alone becomes thin and scratchy before it becomes quiet. Moving toward the fingerboard keeps the sound clean as it softens.

Vibrato often narrows and slows through a diminuendo, reducing intensity alongside volume.

The bow problem

A diminuendo has a practical difficulty a crescendo does not.

As the bow slows, it lasts longer, which is helpful. But a long diminuendo often ends near the tip, where the bow is lightest and control is hardest, precisely when the most control is needed.

Planning the bow so the quiet end falls where the arm has most control, or arranging a hidden bow change, is a real consideration.

Diminuendo and phrase endings

Composers frequently write diminuendos at phrase endings, and even where unmarked, a slight reduction at the end of a phrase is standard practice in most styles.

This is how phrases are shaped: a small growth toward the peak, a small reduction into the resolution.

A player who plays every phrase at a constant level, regardless of markings, sounds mechanical even when technically accurate.

Distinguishing from a rest

Worth mentioning because students conflate them.

A diminuendo ending at pianissimo is still sound. The note continues, quietly.

Some students fade to nothing before the note ends, effectively creating a rest the composer did not write.

The note is held for its full value at whatever level the diminuendo reached.

In an ensemble

Section diminuendos require matched pacing, and they are harder to unify than crescendos because the quiet end is more exposed.

At the bottom of a section diminuendo, one player slightly louder than the rest is clearly audible.

Conductors shape them by gesture and rehearse them more than the volume change alone would suggest.

How it is taught

Alongside crescendo, early, usually as a pair.

The pacing problem is addressed continuously, and the specific instruction that helps is to name the dynamic at intervals through the fade, checking that most of the reduction is still to come at the halfway point.

The other useful exercise is a long open string bow diminishing from forte to pianissimo without the sound breaking up, which develops the bow control the marking actually requires. A chromatic tuner makes this easier to work on alone.

The bar-by-bar check, reversed

Same exercise as for crescendo, in the other direction.

An eight-bar diminuendo from f to p:

Bar 1: f. Bar 2: f. Bar 3: f, slightly less. Bar 4: mf. Bar 5: mf. Bar 6: mp. Bar 7: mp to p. Bar 8: p.

Most of the reduction is in the last three bars. Students instinctively front-load it and then have five quiet bars with nothing happening.

Morendo, calando and smorzando

Three related terms worth distinguishing, since they appear alongside diminuendo and mean slightly more.

Morendo, dying. A diminuendo that also slows, fading toward nothing. Usually at the end of a movement.

Calando, dropping. Getting quieter and usually slower. Similar to morendo.

Smorzando, extinguishing. Fading and dying away, with a sense of the sound being snuffed out.

All three imply tempo as well as dynamic, which distinguishes them from a plain diminuendo. A student who treats them as synonyms for dim. misses the ritardando the composer also wanted.

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